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I guess Anand was right about the market maturing and leveling off, although I feel like such is small increment is a disappointment. Samsung did nothing to address the concerns of the previous generation Galaxy, and to top it off it seems like they are sticking with the tiny pixel/ no OIS setup. Reply

Basically the only thing that I can see going for it is the IP67 certification. That's it. I don't want a fingerprintscanner, although I know a lot of folks do.

Not even 3 gigabyte of RAM. Not higher resolution. Not lower weight. Even the design is exactly the same.

It's a total disappointment. This is weird saying but it seems like Apple is now more innovative than Samsung. First to 64 bit, first to fingerprint scanner(for those who want it). Sapphire glass is rumored on the next phone, possibly solar-powered.

One thing is certain: the era of Samsung's domination of the Android ecosystem is coming to a close.Reply

Hmmm...guess we can count on the comments in each n every Android article eh, ddriver? Pretty easy to go back, read the reviews if the 5s and N3. I've got both and as Anand and Brian's measurements show....the 5s AND Note 3 ARE BOTH the 'high end' when it comes to their respective designs. The 5s actually takes the cake in more benchmarks than the N3. So, again, as an owner of both myself can you explain to me why the ’5s is no longer high end...it's the Note series?' Agreed, Note is the flagship 'Samsung' handset. But in comparison with the the 5s, it has many shortcomings. I like my N3 for business. iPhone for pleasure. They're BOTH STILL 'High End'. Reading comprehension will go a LONG way if you continue to participate in these discussions and if you're too ignorant to notice the iterative evolutions of the 'S' series....it's hard to know where to start teaching ya!Reply

The Note 2 has OIS. For Samsung to miss that mark on the N3 *and* the S5 is not good at all.

Also, Samsung is going backwards on the back covers. The old ones were fine (I clean my screen and back covers daily regardless of what brand it is, and I like it that way). These new ones are going to trap grime big time... yuck.

Samsung shoulda stuck to their guns and kept it practical instead of chasing the "jewelry and faux leather" market. Apple can have that. They're good at it. Functionality is what I care about. USB 3.0 is a nice touch - I hope it works well.Reply

Exactly. What the hell do people expect them to cram into the phone at this point? A genital-tickler? A surrogate brain? A portable particle beam weapon? Jesus Christ, what a pack of spoiled brats we're all becoming in the West. No wonder we're just sitting around fiddling with stupid cell phones while our politicians sell us out and export all our manufacturing base to Asia.

Be satisfied with the friggin' communications swiss army knife modern smartphones have become, get a life and start helping to restore our economic base again before we become a vassal state to China.Reply

Everyone says "nobody buys the slider phones that OEMs release" but none of the slider phones since the original Droid have been high-end phones. Why would anyone buy a 2-generation old hardware platform with a keyboard?

The first company to release a flagship phone with a slider keyboard, meaning the same hardware specs as the non-slider flagship, will find themselves selling a lot of phones.Reply

It's just this: Innovation happens sporadically. You cannot "roadmap" innovation. In either the case of Samsung or Apple... there will be times when it feels like nothing "new" is happening. This may be one of those times for Samsung.

People tend to freak out, but just realize that Innovation is SPORADIC, IRREGULAR, and takes time. Reply

Please tell us what those flagship phones are that you've written about that has 3gb of RAM. Because the iPhone, LG G2, Sony Z1, and HTC One sure as hell don't have 3gb of RAM. LG G2 Pro and Sony Z2 will have 3gb of RAM when it comes out.Reply

Z2 and G2 Pro were the high end devices that I wrote up recently, and it would make sense for Samsung to include 3GB of RAM if the Note 3 had 3GB of RAM as well. It wasn't until the press release came out that I knew for sure it was 2GB of RAM.Reply

How do you feel "limited" without 3 Gb on a smartphone ?It's just the specs list, isn't it ?Typical android users can't stand without the "bigger screen ... More cores ... More MHz ... More ram" adagio at every iteration. This is maybe the reason why many feels underwhelmed by galaxy S5: it's a refinement of the previous S4. I'm not going to consider it, since it's android, but I find it a good evolution of the previous flagship.Reply

Samsung's known for bring incredible at two things:(1) Seeing an innovative product and then creating their own version (not quite copying, but taking the idea and mass-producing the heck out of it)(2) Throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks

So the S5 shouldn't be a surprise, as they're just iterating - and none of their experiments has really "stuck" lately.Reply

"This is weird saying but it seems like Apple is now more innovative than Samsung."

...Are. You. Kidding. Me?

I say this as a lifelong Android user, but the smartphone industry has Apple to thank for several upon several of the key innovations in the smartphone space. In fact, let's be real, the complete vertical integration Apple has allows it to innovate in ways that is frustratingly hard for Android—it's able to decide it wants to implement a hardware feature, and *boom*, that's it, OS and software are in complete lockstep unlike the agonizing mess of Bluetooth 4.0 low-power integration on Android.

I'll also point out some other major Apple design wins: first (or successfully popularized) to digital compass, gyroscope, 300+ dpi screen, high aperture camera optics, multiband (world and US) radios, GPU power that was unrivaled for a good year or two, and now, as you point out, the move to 64-bit and fingerprint scanning.

I love Android, and Google and Apple offer compelling competition that keeps the industry moving at a fast clip. I don't begrudge Apple at all, because if it didn't exist, smartphones would be a lot shittier than they are now. Some of you fanboys need to give this garbage a rest.Reply

Well said Neo. No need to worship one overt the other. Competition is what is fueling this mobile 'boom' and what an awesome time to be 'in to technology'. Why not enjoy? This mine's bigger than yours BS sounds more like my nine year iOS son playing Xbox with his buds on Saturdays Reply

Apple will probably do more, simply because it will be later in the year and DDR4/TSMC 20nm/etc. will be available.

You'd think Samsung and HTC and etc. would grab a page from Apple's book and just delay by six months if they feel like its worth the wait. Crap that made me sound like an Apple fanboy when I've never bought an Apple product in my life. Uhhh, Steve Jobs sucked!Reply

The Lenovo Thinkpad used to have a swipe fingerprint sensor. I realize that the S5's usability depends on Samsung's implementation, but I found the swiping aspect to be terribly error prone, especially in rushed situations. The swipe motion was very sensitive to speed, and friction changed depending on whether your finger was damp or dry. Dry skin tends to grab and suddenly lurch across the sensor, while moist skin slides more uniformly. In general, motion seemed to add a higher probability of error by the sensor.Reply

I'm singularly unimpressed by the S5. As an S3 owner since June 2012, I was hoping for something that would really be worth the upgrade. I didn't see anything that compelled me to get an S4 over my S3 and I'm just not seeing it here either. I suppose that I'll just need to wait and see what else comes out this year before upgrading.Reply

I agree. The S4 wasn't a huge upgrade(mainly just the 1080p display) and this is even less than that.

It's the same way I feel about the iPhone 4S vs the iPhone 5S. Sure, the 5S is a very nice phone, but to me it feels like a "stop gap" before the iPhone 6 arrives(most of it has to do with the fact that it only has 1GB of RAM)Reply

I'd argue the 4S to 5S gap is enormous. Dual core A9->Cyclone. Larger screen. Higher resolution. LTE. Most of those advantages existed with the 5, which was itself a much larger incremental improvement over the 4S than this seems to be over the S4 (Swift was still a huge upgrade over A9). But agreed on the gimped RAM. I'm due for a work phone refresh soon but I'm going to hold onto the 5 until the 6 is out, partly for the assumption that we'll see a move to 2GB.Reply

We're entering the era of "good enough" in the smartphone space. If you've been happy so far you'll be happy for plenty of time ahead. At least until you need a new smartphone due to lack of software upgrades(unless you're doing custom ROMs). Reply

Compare the original Sony Xperia Z(not the Z1) and compare its sleekness to the bulky monsters of Z1/Z2. Not even close and a design regression. Sony's Z tablets are much more beautiful by comparison.Reply

This is very underwhelming. Since 2010 the market has been very stagnant. Retina displays and industrial design were the last major upgrades and since then manufactures have resorted mostly to processor upgrades every year.

How fast the market was moving from 2007 to 2009 led me to believe we would be seeing some true innovation and mind blowing things by now. Even Apple is doing incremental upgrades every year. Better cameras and a faster soc's, this has turned into the PC industry.

Perhaps the market is moving away from innovating in phones and the moving towards wearable devices.Reply

The market isn't moving away from phones as much as it's bumping up against the laws of physics. The PC industry took much longer because it had to invent everything from the ground up. The phone industry is basically just re-purposing and fine tuning those inventions. It shouldn't be too much of a surprise that they have most likely reached the plateau in fewer years.Reply

Huh? LTE? And you're forgetting that there is such a thing as software. The smartphone ecosystem, whether Apple or Android-related, has evolved an enormous amount. While stuff like Dropbox or Evernote existed back then, too, their capability and convenience with high-speed smartphones today is almost without comparison when you look at the speeds and specs of 2010 when the services were undeveloped and sluggishly slow.

And then there's the form factors. Most people don't like carrying around 3.5" phones.Reply

If it is then I have a hard time believing this is the S5 and not the S5 active or some midrange galaxy model to be released in parallel. Samsung's roadmaps have been pointing to much better specs than these and they always have at least one wow spec on the S line to differentiate them.

Furthermore the S5 has yet to be officially unveiled, that happens later today.

If I'm right Anand should hire me as I am more competent then their current smartphone staff. Reply

Hope the fingerprint scanner can be fully disabled ,although not having it at all would be much better, no need to get our fingerprints spied on/stolen.The heart rate sensor is a nice addition and so is the 2x2 wifi but overall it feels like too little.We need exciting things.Reply

I don't want a day when you NEED to use biometric data for your smartphones, whether it is scanning your iris or taking your fingerprints but we are rapidly going into that direction.

Unfortunately. If someone comes out with a smartphone without all of these things, they'll probably sell a lot for just that reason. (Of course, it isn't hard to see how governments around the world would force smartphone OEMs to include biometric data for all their devices to get around this).Reply

Jeez. Now we have a couple more million useless pixels. Samsung, how about cutting the MP back to 10 and increasing photosite size? Seriously 10MP is more than adequate considering the tiny sensor size and low quality optics possible in a phone camera.Reply

The big improvement made in the iPhone 5S fingerprint reader was that it's a 2D fingerprint scanner that can read your fingerprint when you press the home button in a normal fashion... you don't need to do anything extra compared to what you normally do. The reason previous 1D fingerprint scanners failed is because they required a separate and often uncomfortable action (scanning my fingerprint on my laptop was always a pain because of the awkward positioning). So Samsung is totally missing the point here.Reply

Samsung has never grasped subtleties, but that's because their goal isn't an overall more usable device, it's simply after ticking spec sheet checkboxes whether that makes the overall product better or worse.Reply

I have to agree. I don't get that Samsung implements 16 MP camera, while the problem is not pixel count, but the fact that you have to be in almost ideal circumstances to shoot a good photo with these devices. The optics and sensors can not handle 8 MP but hey here is 16 MP. Reply

I like the direction Samsung is taking. I call it the Porsche approach, because that what Porsche has done over 50 years. You look at a modern Porsche you can still see the original design from 1963. Just because their subtle changes does not live up to all the hype does not mean that it worthless. If it isn't broke don't fix it. I would rather have faster hardware than a fancy look, since you can't upgrade the hardware and future updates can slow down a lot of phones. I just got 4.3 on my Note 2 and it has some problems. If you want my opinion they should skip metal and go with carbon fiber. It can be injection molded like plastic (Zoltech) and they can still have a replaceable battery; Which for me is a must. (I have had batteries die before and would hate to replace an entire device all because of a $40 battery.) Also it would take less time to produce than CNC Milling Aluminum. and be way cooler. Reply

Except the 911 design is thought to be sort of timeless and beautiful by many. Comparing the design language of the Galaxy line to that vehicle is absolutely laughable. You can argue function over form, but these are not "sexy" devices (which doesn't matter to many) so it's a pretty bad analogy.Reply

LOL. Definitely not a beauty, but I think it's still probably more interesting looking compared to its peers at the time than the Galaxy will be to theirs in 40 years. Maybe Samsung can shift around some design resources from their refrigerator group...Reply

Not really, Every flagship needs its design identity. Right know the Galaxy line has its design and their is no real reason to change it. When the 911 first came out it wasn't considered to be a timeless design, but evolved into a timeless design. I like the overall design I and an glad that they are refining the features and not just all over the place with design.Reply

It had a _good_ design from the beginning that they have been refining ever since. All gadgets have *a* design. That isn't any reason to stick with it over time. There is plenty of reason to change the design of the Galaxy line since that's the one part that is severely lacking. I'm not suggesting they get rid of expandable storage or removable batteries. But they could make a phone with all of the features of the existing line, AND make it damn good looking. 10 years from now the current iPhone/HTC One (or hell many of the Lumias) are still going to be good looking devices. There's no good technical reason preventing Samsung from joining that club, and I wish they would.Reply

As a current S4 owner I am massively under-whelmed by the S5. I was considering upgrading but I won't be now. All the talk of a carbon fibre body, 2k screen, etc was all fluff. I mean, STILL a single speaker on the rear? Oh dear. The biggest problem I have with my phone is the near useless ability of the camera in low light. Has this been fixed? Doesn't sound like it from what I've read but I'm not an expert.

After the lashing Samsung got for the S4 design I'm amazed they've essentially used it again.Reply

No drag & drop of files to / from the handset. Forced to register credit card, forced to use iTunes, unlock a real hassle, selling our movement / whereabouts to other companies, blocking useful apps like 'Saynoto8070' to name just one...no bloody way.

Nice hardware that 5S, but give me Android on it, and you could 'Shut up and take my money!'

<<<No drag & drop of files to / from the handset. Forced to register credit card, forced to use iTunes, unlock a real hassle, selling our movement / whereabouts to other companies, blocking useful apps like 'Saynoto8070' to name just one...no bloody way.>>

dragging and dropping versus choosing and clicking sync is not easier or harder..you don't have to register a credit card with the iTunes or app store, you can use gift cards.itunes vs google play.. same thing different skin.unlock a hastle? Apparently you haven't used touchID...its the easiest unlock Ive ever used on any device.selling movmenet/whereabouts to other companies...you're complaining about another company other than google mining your information? rofl...

So how do you pay on the Google Play store if not by giftcards? Credit cards for most people. Gift cards can give you a way to get around that.

As for NSA; are you so naive to think that things are different with Android? And Google is mining your information much more aggressively for their own sake, because their main revenue source is ads from personal information. So when NSA knocks on the door, they can give you much more detailed information(Gmail/youtube, search browser history etc) than Apple could.

For all the complaining about it being underwhelming, gradual changes with obvious continuity of design is what wins in the phone game. Samsung isn't out to sell a handful of phones to a couple tech bloggers, they're trying to sell a couple hundred million of these things. Weird ass "everything you thought you knew about a Samsung phone is now wrong" changes for the sake of change is not what people or carriers will actually buy. Haters and professional curmudgeons complained enough about them adding software and features that you didn't ever need to use or acknowledge the existence of unless you wanted to at no extra cost. Slow and steady familiarity is the name of the game. This and it's niche seeking derivatives will sell well enough to keep Samsung and Apple the only manufacturers making any money on phones. Reply

Incremental changes work great when you're starting from a good base. Not so good when the base is bad.

Likewise, incrementalism works when the changes are good and well-thought-out. Not so much when they aren't.

When you have a kitchen sink phone, incremental changes don't cut it. Especially incremental changes that are more of the same 'throw it at the wall and see what sticks.' What it needs most is taking all the stuff that's been tossed in there over the last couple of generations, throwing out the stuff that didn't stick, and tweaking the stuff that did so that it all works together.

If you're going to throw in a fingerprint sensor, don't just repeat the stuff from the Atrix/One Max that didn't work; make it work right and ergonomically.

tl;dr - Incrementalism works when it's refinement. Samsung's more like a katamari.Reply

Samsung has an overall strategy of trying a lot of things. They aren't replacing what is already out there, just adding to it. Why would anyone object to that? It's working for them and you don't have to buy it. How is it a "kitchen sink phone"? There is a clear continuity from the S2 to the S5. The fact that there are other phones (Note, mini, active, etc.) in the family doesn't change that.

You say the base is bad, but their sales say otherwise. They must be doing something right.

There's a difference between using the available features to see what you can do and using the features to look for griping points. Why would you gripe about your local buffet adding more things if they didn't get rid of the things you liked before?Reply

"Far below estimates" still happens to be hella more than anyone but Apple. You do know that every company in the yearly phone game ramps down manufacturing at some point after launch, right? That doesn't have anything to do with anything.Reply

Dang... I was really hoping the rumor of separate plastic and metal body variants was true. Would've seriously considered this phone if so, but as it stands... It feels like far too many compromises to me. A shame! I hope Samsung takes some significant leaps with industrial design next generation.Reply

The S5 isn't a poor device in most regards, but I think the timing of the device is extremely unfortunate. Given that we will most likely see a massive overhaul of the iPhone later this year, this incremental upgrade is simply not enough to lure even the most bored of Apple users away.

I'm most disappointed with the lack of OIS (LG's flagship already has it, as does the Lumia 1020 and 920) or a larger camera sensor, but I'll withhold final judgement until I see photos from the device after a few updates.

Currently have an S3, my phone upgrade credit kicks in later this year and I was considering getting the S5 but nothing I read here blew me away. I'll wait and see what else comes out before deciding.Reply

Unbelievable. I don't think I've ever been so thoroughly disappointed by the launch of a new device. They failed to make any substantial leap in every major aspect of the phone. I mean for fuck's sake, it literally recycles the screen from the S4.Reply

For a long time, it was known that the S5 was gonna have 4gb of RAM (and I even hoped that maybe it be 5gb of RAM..get it? S5 as in 5" screen and 5gb RAM, etc). But the 4gb was acceptable since its a lot better than S3's tiny 1gb of RAM. I skipped the S4 cuz I want the S5. And today I learned ita gonna only have 2gb RAM?! Two (2)?!?!?!?!?! With 4gb, I was not planning to root like I had to for the Epic. I didnt root my S3 but now there are more and more apps and they get bigger and bigger. But Samsung gonna ruin the S5 with only 2 frickin gb of RAM?! How pathetic can ya all make such a disasterous business decision?! Now I wonder if I should abandon Galaxy S all together and find a company that's actually smart to give us more RAM cuz most of us are using our mobile devices more often than computer and we need those RAM!!! So the launch date is set for April 11th, which means that millions of screwed up S5 has already been made and its not worthy enough cuz it only have a small baby 2gb of RAM. So... I got two options.... Get it and root it...or...find a better device (non-Apple) with at least 3-4gb of RAM. I cant believe how stupid Samsung can be?! Btw, no announcement of prices...well, I bet its cuz you are evaluating the public's reactions. Well, here is my furious reaction among with the mass many furious others. Now that's gonna drop the prices of the S5. If only ya had done the right thing...ya would've been able to charge more for the S5. What a crappy joke to go around bragging about your "flagship" device (which its not) while it has 2 frickin gb of RAM that will only last the S5 a few months of its full speed potential before it starts to slow down and freeze like the S3. Oh, gawd, I cant believe it... S3 is 1gb, then there is S4, and now S5 at 2gb. WOW!!!!!!!

I certainly don't think your rant on Facebook or elsewhere will drop the price to $300 dollars. An item is worth whatever the punter will pay and whilst I certainly wouldn't, you can guarantee it will sell to the masses at launch price, maybe not in the numbers that the S2 or S3 did, but then they'll lower the price once the initial milking is over.Reply

A lot of people are disappointed because they are expecting way too much of a generational release. They key benchmark for me is FOUR Major features changed or included. Count it:\1) New SoC (grant it does not give a lot) but it is different from the previous SoC.2) New screen. Not obvious to most but very important to some people.\3) New camera. Same as above.4) WaterProofing. IP67 certification. (everyone can appreciate this)5) Finger Print scanner.

Yeah a lot of people would want a 20MP camera with OIS. Who would not want this ?, goto Sony!. or Goto Nokia is its camera is best to you. Choices are all over the place which makes this market interesting and fun.Reply

The first thing to suppress with a barrier between pixels is good old diffusion, which is far more important than any quantum effects in traditional sensors.

> For the battery, things are noticeably different as Samsung has gone with a 3.85V chemistry compared to the 3.8V chemistry previously used by the Galaxy S4. With a battery capacity of 10.78 WHr, this means that it has 2800 mAh.

Just ditch mAh completely, as it doesn't contain any information not also contained in WHr, and does not tell you anything about device runtime (unless you know the voltage).Reply

Samsung as usual has so many awesome features under the hood as well as out.I'm loving that the Galaxy S5 has IP67 certification, USB 3.0, Heart Rate Monitor, ISOCell Camera (Best), Simultaneous LTE + Wifi downloads, Ultra power saving mode capable of going 24 hours on 10% battery. Better display, Better Battery, Better Processor. And I love it. Can't wait for what they have in stock for the note 4. Samsung is king as usual. KudosReply

Samsung does not make mistakes in design - everything is deliberate, defects will occur statistically in any high volume product but there are really no design flubs or shorts.

As far as evolution vs revolution goes, most american reviewer yawned and ridiculed the "phablet" and the big screen S4 - as the public quietly purchased millions of each mode.

My family owns the N, N2, S4, and N3 - and there have been zero defects, zero disappointments, zero breakages, and total appreciation for the power, speed, capacity, and feature sets. The Galaxy phones however are not really aimed at uninformed, average, call and email folks - that would be the iphone. The Galaxies are targeted more for the business class, professionals, managers and extremely busy folks who appreciate solid high performance phones with a ton of time management and productivity tools. As an added bonus you get a very large very hi def display for content consumption - so I cannot image why anyone would prefer watching films, tv, and videos on a four inch 720p display over a very big bright 1080p crystal clear display....specs only support the argument.

High end is a total package and not giving up performance in any arena. Reply

It is very hypocritical to generalize iPhone users as uninformed. A Samsung Galaxy S-Series is the iPhone of Android devices in terms of marketing and consumer buy patterns. There are plenty of capable devices with similar or better specs that can accomplish the same things. The best high end phone, is the one that helps you accomplish what you need to on a daily basis, whether it be an iPhone or a ZTE Grand Memo. Reply

For me this device is an OK device, when I compare the device with my Huawei's Honor 6 I find there are a a lot of features which are superior in my device in comparison to Galaxy S5, and my device came at a much better price in comparison to S5. You can check the price for both the device here: http://goo.gl/4wojuWReply